Monthly Archives: May 2007

Newburyport, Value and Preserving Memories

This is taken from a paper that will be read and discussed during Preservation Week, sponsored by the Newburyport Preservation Trust. The discussion will take place:

Sunday May 6, 2007
3:00 PM
Newburyport City Hall

“Finally, I’d ask you to take a moment and think of something significant to you personally. Anything. You may think of your children, or your spouse, or your church, or god, or a favorite piece of art hanging in your living room, or your childhood home, or a personal accomplishment of some type. Now take away your memory. Which of those things are now significant to you? None of them. There can be no significance without memory. Now those same 23 things may still be significant to someone else. But without memory they are not significant to you. And if memory is necessary for significance, it is also necessary for both meaning and value. Without memory nothing has significance, nothing has meaning, nothing has value…

The city tells it own past, transfers its own memory, largely through the fabric of the built environment. Historic buildings are the physical manifestation of memory – and it is memory that makes places significant.”
© Donovan D. Rypkema, 2007, PlaceEconomics

This excerpt from Donovan Rypkema’s speech addresses the question so often asked in Newburyport, MA, “Why not take that old thing down and put up a replica that will sell?”

Because as a city, we are tearing down our historic houses and putting up “replicas” in record number, and by doing so, we are obliterating our “memory,” and we are literally stripping Newburyport, MA of its significance, meaning and value.

Is that what we as a city really want to do??

I had seen a copy of this paper before. It addresses a number other issues as well. The title of the paper is, “Historic, Green and Profitable.”

Newburyport’s Planning Director, Nancy Colbert will be on the panel to make observations, along with David Hall, who has created the Tannery, and a lovely gentleman and an historic preservation expert, Ian Stewart. The discussion, at 3PM on May 6, 2007, at Newburyport City Hall, is open to one and all.

And if you cannot make it, a PDF version of the paper by Donovan D. Rypkema is available on the Newburyport Preservation website, nbptpreservationtrust.org. It can be found on the “Events” link on their website.

Mary Eaton
Newburyport

Newburyport, Losing its Newburportness

This week 2 families in my neighborhood are moving out. These are families whose parents lived here, who grew up here and who raised their children here, who retain the memory and history of Newburyport. And they are leaving.

They certainly aren’t the first “old timers” to leave my neighborhood. (In fact I count 6 families just within the last few years.)

I want to reach out and say “Nooooooooo, don’t go. We need you here so much.” We need the memories and history of this place that you denote. But it feels like grasping at water, only to have it slip through my fingers and off my hand.

My neighborhood is/was one of the few (maybe only) places in the South End of Newburyport, MA that was “undiscovered.” Undiscovered no more.

We are becoming “up and coming” just like so many of the neighborhoods in Newburyport, MA.

Not that that’s a bad thing, but I miss the people who have moved out. And quite frankly I miss the “mix” of people. A mix of “new” people as well as people who personify Newburyport’s history.

For the most part my neighbors haven’t said “why” they are moving out, but it appears to me that economic realities seem to play a major role in all the decisions to move.

And one of my neighbors, a wonderful, vocal Newburyporter had this to say. “I’ve got a doctor on one side and a CEO on the other, and I just don’t feel like I belong here anymore.”

And that may be part of it too.

I find that I am “shocked” every time an “old” family moves. And I fear that we could be losing Newburyport’s “flavor,” its feistiness, its memory, its history, its “Newburyportness.” That we could become yet one more bland suburban enclave without a living embodiment of our past.

The fact that often the insides of old houses are being ripped out without thought these days seems significant in more ways than “just” a physical building being gutted, with only the façade left standing. It’s becoming so prevalent now, that it almost seems symbolic.

When I see old buildings being gutted, it feels as if the memories and the history that make this historic seaside city significant, are being destroyed as well.

And as I was listening to my neighbor’s moving plans, it felt as if part of Newburyport that has given the city its memory, its history, its inner character (at least while I’ve been here these last 26 years) was in the process of being “gutted” too.

Mary Eaton
Newburyport

Newburyport, Literary Festival and Preservation Week

The second annual Newburyport Literary Festival (April 27-29, 2007) appeared to be a huge hit this weekend.

The seaside city of Newburyport, MA was full of folks, getting out of their cars with purpose and intent, heading off to hear some 70 writers at various locations across the historic city of Newburyport, MA.

Pretty amazing for only the 2nd annual Newburyport Literary Festival.

And starting this weekend there will be another festival of sorts. The Newburyport Preservation Trust is having its first annual Preservation Week starting Saturday, May 5th through May 12, 2007.

Good for the Newburyport Preservation Trust.

The Newburyport Preservation Trust has blossomed this year due to the efforts, in great part (there are others) to Sarah White, Steve Rudolph as well as Karen Battles.

From what I understand there will be posters telling all about the preservation celebration around town. Be sure to be on the lookout.

Preservation Week opens at 10AM at the old jail on Auburn Street, beside the Newburyport Bartlet Mall. Our very own Bill Steelman will be making the opening remarks.

And, as I think I’ve said before on the Newburyport Blog, Bill Steelman is one of Newburyport’s unsung heroes.

I first got to know Mr. Steelman when I was involved in the fight to save High Street. At that time he was working for the Massachusetts Historical Commission. I can absolutely guarantee you that we would have a strip-mall for High Street if it wasn’t for Mr. Steelman’s knowledge, involvement and expertise.

Bill Steelman has never been one to seek the limelight, so I couldn’t be more please that folks would have a chance to get to know this gentleman, who has a wealth of knowledge, in fact I often refer to him as a walking encyclopedia of knowledge, during Newburyport Preservation Week.

For a complete calendar of events, please check out the Newburyport Preservation Trust’s website, or go directly to the “Events” page of the Newburyport Preservation Trust.

We as a community are enormously lucky to have people step up to the plate– for the Literary Festival and also for Preservation Week. A big “thank you” to all.

Mary Eaton
Newburyport